The Battle of Morgarten
by DNAzne
Summary: In 1315, as Vash Zwingli fought for independence and Roderich Edelstein refused to let go of his old friend and rival, 1500 Swiss peasants went up against an Austrian army three times their size and won. Historical event, Non-romance.
1. Trappings of Pride

**A/N:** This is my take on a historical event, the Battle of Morgarten, better known as the turning point for Swiss independence from Austria. I'm going to be overriding Hetalia manga!canon in one point, in that I regard Switzerland and Austria as already being teenagers (or the like) by this time, 1315. This is both because I'm uncomfortable with writing moe!chibis in combat situations, and because I expect nations to become more mature during independence.

There is no outright shipping in this story; it's more of a character study that explores how Switzerland's former friendship with Austria came to an end in a (hopefully) historically accurate manner. However, I'd always be happy to find other Swiss/Austria fans. Please offer any suggestions or critiques you'd like.

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The knights came. Row upon row of heraldic decor and burnished armor marched upon the vale, seated astride war-chargers decked to the teeth. Grass fell beneath their feet and was ground into the mud as more marched over them. Behind the grim knights with their lances followed men-at-arms carrying great blades, and behind them, foot soldiers in glittering mail. The host of Austria, a vast silver stream, flowed down the narrow mountain pass between lake and sun.

They were going to war, these chivalrous knights. Maybe not even that; they were going to put down a rebellion, for the Swiss had finally demanded an independence that was not theirs. They had but to cross the Morgarten Pass to reach the canton of Schwyz, where they would dispatch a few fool peasants and cement Austrian rule once and for all. So the Swiss had formed a so-called confederation; the knights were not concerned. They were the might of Austria, the best of the brave, and they were not rats to be rattled by rabble.

In the multitude, one head lay unhelmeted. Roderich Edelstein rode to war among his fighters.

A starling flew chattering from the mountainside, but no knight looked up. If one had, he might have caught a glimpse of brown cloth vanishing again into the undergrowth on the mountain slope, high above the narrow pass. Yet the Swiss, who knew the mountains, went unnoticed amidst crags and broken stone. They watched.

Atop a rocky outcropping, Vash Zwingli waited. He saw the silver stream creeping closer, his own men silent in the underbrush, and finally, the brown, unhelmeted head in a sea of metal. Roderich did not see him, Vash knew, and probably would not see until it was too late. He felt a twinge of pity that he might have called sadness in younger days, but which he now shook away brusquely. After their last meeting, Vash had but one thing left to do, and then he never wanted to see Roderich again.

Soon after the death of Rudolf I of Habsburg, then-Holy Roman Emperor, Vash had gone to see Roderich. He did not expect a warm welcome as he strode unannounced into the great Habsburg hall, and Roderich did not offer him one.

"How nice to see you again." Roderich said coldly. He sat upon a golden throne too large for his slim frame, and his black mourning garb, Vash thought, made him look like a bat. "Please don't offend my intelligence by pretending you're here to offer condolences for Rudolf. You hated him."

"Then I won't." Vash retorted. "We both know why I'm here, Rod-"

"Austria."

"What?"

Roderich laughed. "I am no longer a child. I have come into my rightful rule, and that name will no longer be used. Especially not by you, _Vash_."

They were not getting off to a good start. Vash pressed on anyway. "The Emperor of the Romans is no longer Habsburg. I and my people answer only to the Emperor, as per the _Reichsfreiheit_ – not to Habsburg rule. I may have tolerated Rudolf I's taxes, but now that he's dead, I want your tax-collectors and lords out of my lands immediately."

"Really." Roderich said. He stood, his cloak swirling irritably. "How funny. And I suppose that little 'confederation' your people formed is going to enforce such demands? Schwyz and some other rats, was it?"

"Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, my forest cantons." Vash snapped. "If you knew that they've united, Roderich, then do me the courtesy of remembering that I am the Swiss Confederation just as much as you are Austria!"

"Swiss, you say?" Roderich mused.

Vash jumped as the other man's pretense of calm shattered. "The Swiss Confederation? A confederation of dunces! Do you honestly expect me to acknowledge the high-minded pretensions of a mob of peasants? The forest cantons belong to me, to the Habsburgs! I will not remove my lords from a land rightfully mine!"

"Choose your next words more carefully, Roderich." Vash growled. He felt cold. It had come down to this, after all. "I – my people – belong to no one, and there is a limit to the amount of tyranny we will tolerate."

Roderich laughed bitterly. "Tyranny? The rights to your lands lie in Habsburg hands, and no earthly power would argue otherwise! Do you honestly think Rudolf I will be the last Habsburg Emperor? My house is growing, Vash; the Habsburgs are becoming more powerful by the day, and you would do well to remain on their – and my – good side. Otherwise..." He made a careless gesture. "Your confederation may have a shorter lifespan than you expected."

Vash shook his head. "I don't take threats well, Roderich. Don't underestimate me; you of all people should know better."

"You are the one who ought not to underestimate me!" Roderich snapped back. "I am no longer the weakling incapable of holding a sword and needing your coddling, Vash! Will you rebel? Go on, do! I will show you the extent of my power, and make you understand that I have finally become stronger than you!"

"Stop raving." Vash said coldly.

_This entire visit is a waste, then_, he thought, gazing at Roderich. He had grown distant from Austria – Roderich - during the reign of Rudolf I, but even then he had not expected the other to change so greatly. The haughty, vindictive Roderich that stood before Vash now bore no resemblance to the boy Vash once knew. He continued, bitterly, "I don't give a damn about which of us is stronger. But if you won't listen, then I'll do what's best for my people – with or without your interference."

"I shall look forward to seeing you try."

Roderich smiled, suddenly calm, but his eyes remained frosty. "Perhaps we will meet again over this topic, and then I will not be responsible for my actions, Vash. You should leave now."

Vash spun about and left the hall without a word.

Austria gazed after the departing figure, sighed, and turned back towards the throne. Vash did not understand. The Habsburgs needed his lands and people as an open route to Italy, but Austria needed _him_ - to prove against, to control, and to be a part of himself. Vash had always been strong; Austria would defeat him and prove himself worthy to command that strength. They would be powerful together, a force to rival the Holy Roman Empire, but first he had to convince – no, force – Vash to see reason.

Austria had been entirely serious when he suggested that Vash rebel.


	2. The Pass of Morgarten

Three Holy Roman Emperors had gone by since that meeting. Albert I, the only Habsburg, had been neither particularly oppressive nor stupid, and Vash did not pay Austria another visit after the man's death. Yet Austria knew the peace would not last, and he was soon proven right. Emperor Henry VII proceeded to die without a successor, leaving Frederick of Austria and Louis of Bavaria to duel over the throne. Vash supported Louis and vocally opposed the thought of another Habsburg Emperor, which was galling enough on its own, but then the Swiss revolted outright by raiding several Austrian towns. So Leopold I, Duke of Austria, had marched out with five thousand men to subdue the rebellion – and here he was.

Austria gazed out over the ranks of his knights, letting his glance trail off at the distant white mountain peaks. He did not have to be here; Leopold was perfectly capable of handling the campaign himself. But Austria had not forgotten his last meeting with Vash, and he knew that Vash had not either, that Vash would be there fighting beside his people. So Austria came to war.

It was finally time, he thought. After a decade and a half's worth of uneasy tensions and awkward events, like that one William Tell incident – but, Austria interrupted himself, after this battle Tell and the other "Swiss patriots" would no longer matter. This was Austria's time now, and he would soon prove himself the stronger without any room for doubt. He would not lose. Rather, he could not lose, because he could not remain in Vash's shadow if he were to become the power the Habsburgs dreamed of, the name that Europe would come to respect -

Was that the identity the boy named Roderich had wanted? His unconscious mind asked, in Vash's voice.

Austria stopped cold, but only for a moment. Now was not the time for such thoughts. He would find his way in this battle; he would cement his new identity by defeating Vash, and that was all that mattered. He rode on.

High above the pass, Vash closed his eyes, turning away from the knights and from Roderich. His people were waiting.

Hidden against every rock and tree was a man, a fighter, a farmer who days ago had wielded nothing more dangerous than a plow, but who now clutched a blade whetted sharper than winter. These were the men of Schwyz and Uri who had left their farms and families to fight for their independence - for _his _existence. Some of them would fall here, yet others would carry on the dreams of the fallen. That was the nature of the Swiss_ Eidgenossenschaft_¸ the eternal oath of brotherhood sworn by those united by their shared trials. That was Vash. That was how he became aware of himself, then a stubborn, warlike boy who could allow no wrong to be perpetrated against his people. That was why he was here; to protect them.

A long time ago, he would have done the same for Roderich. They had once been friends. And that was why, despite being terribly incensed at the other's stupidity, Vash couldn't simply abandon Roderich to his delusions.

An arrow hung at his side by a cord. Vash held it up, glancing again at the message tied to its shaft, penned in Roderich's familiar handwriting. Last night, his scouts had found the arrow stuck in the ground on the outskirts of the Swiss camp. He had known instantly what it was – a warning, but more than that, a challenge.

"Beware of the Morgarten."

It was stupid, Vash thought bitterly, stupid and desperate, for Roderich to want to prove himself so badly to Vash's face that he would reveal his entire campaign. Or perhaps it was simple arrogance; it mattered not. The Swiss would not show mercy in either case. But for the sake of the friend he had once known, Vash would defend Roderich one last time – this time, from himself.

It was time. The knights marching below had reached the narrowest point of the pass, almost directly beneath the hidden Swiss fighters. They did not look up. Even if they had, they would not have thought any part of the mountainside odd, for they did not know the mountains. The Swiss did. There was, on a wide ledge halfway up the slope, far too great an amount of shrubbery, logs, and loose rock, positioned at an angle to fall at the least bit of force. A squad of fighters had moved it there the night before. Now they lay behind the heap, waiting for a signal.

Vash stepped into the open and snapped the arrow in half.

"Milord!" A soldier cried, pointing up the mountainside. "There!"

Austria started, turned, and looked upward. The slope was ragged with rock and scrub, and for a moment he did not see what the commotion was about. Then a glimpse of bright yellow caught his eye; the familiar blond figure of Vash stood atop a large rock, clad in chain mail and green cloth. Their eyes met for a single moment, and Austria vaguely thought, _he's holding something_.

Then the mountain fell with a roar.

The great mass of rubble, released by its guardians at the sound of the arrow snapping, now crashed headlong down the mountain. It gathered momentum as it went; boulders and logs ricocheted off each other and the slope, breaking into pieces, bounding along, heading unerringly towards the front of the Austrian line. The knights saw their impending doom approaching, tried to flee – and found themselves against a mountainside, a wall of their comrades, and the lake. They did not get very far.

"No!" Austria cried, almost pleaded, as the first boulders hit and screams erupted around him. His knights fell into panic; some forgot their full plate armor and dove into the lake, but the rest, hemmed in by their fellows, were no more fortunate in escaping. Austria turned wildly, cried for his men to brace themselves, to halt, to do anything but march onward into death and chaos, but his voice was lost in the tumult. His soldiers – the Habsburgs' finest, the bravest of the brave – were one confused mass of bodies and rocks and screams –

A bugle. Not Austrian. Then came, even louder than the sound of the mountain, a war cry raised in unison from a thousand voices. The Swiss army - peasants, farmers, mountain-men – charged down the slopes and smashed into the broken Austrian forces like a wave of blades. Austria, who had lost his horse and been pushed aside in the madness, could not move; the clash of metal on metal and the screams of the war-horses, riderless, useless, filled his ears. Everywhere, anywhere but death – he looked up.

Vash's level green eyes met his. The other had not moved in the eternity of the last three minutes.

"You _bastard_!" Austria roared, rage surging through him and dragging him back into life. This was all Vash's fault, all his schemes, and how could he stand there looking so _calmly _at everything while the world fell and their people died and - "God _damn_ you, come down here and fight!"

Vash made a contemptuous gesture to his left, then turned and disappeared into the tangle of rock. Shaking with fury, Austria slowly realized that where Vash had pointed, there was what looked like a path up the mountain, obscured by brush and wide enough for only one. It was not hard to tell what was expected of him.

Austria had somehow not lost his sword. Gripping it tightly, he pushed into the underbrush in pursuit of Vash.


	3. Edelweiss

Above the valley and Lake Aegeri stretched a blue November sky. But within the valley there was only slaughter.

The Austrian forces had lost. The knights fought desperately, but packed into the narrow pass and bereft of the might of their warhorses, they were no match for the long-reaching halberds of the Swiss. Some escaped into the lake and discovered in their last moments of life that steel plate did not float. Others, merely wounded, thought to invoke the knightly code of chivalry and beg for mercy. They found none: the Swiss were not knights. The foot soldiers in the back, seeing destruction looming over them, fled; their commander Duke Leopold was nowhere to be seen; and above the carnage, Austria climbed steadily onward.

The mountain path was small, rocky, and steep; a single misstep would have left him hanging precariously – or worse. In the smallest corner of his mind, Austria knew full well that he was defenseless here, up the side of a mountain in Swiss territory with Vash probably hiding around the nearest corner ready to _ambush_ him again…but he pressed on. All thoughts of danger had been driven from his mind by cold, heavy rage.

Vash had made a fool of him. Austria had sent that arrow to the Swiss, intending to draw them to the battlefield and defeat them fairly and soundly in a show of might, and with that single arrow Vash had butchered several thousand of his men. How _dared_ he? A small rabble of farmers and vagabonds, presuming to stand against the might of the Habsburgs, fighting without fairness or honor and winning – Austria could not accept this. He would not rest until Vash and all his so-called "confederation" knelt before him and begged for their existences, and at this point Austria didn't feel like granting them even that.

But first things first. Austria laughed bitterly, thanking the man he had once called friend for this chance. There would be no ambush this time. Vash could simply have killed him with the rest of his knights in the pass – if Austria could be killed, that is, and he had never tried it – but instead led him up this mountain, alone. Why else would he have done so? It was obviously a challenge not unlike the one Austria had sent, and although the odds were more even this time, Austria intended to take it. He would prove once and for all his superior strength, and then he would make Vash pay for the deaths of his men.

The trail abruptly ended. Austria almost stumbled, caught himself, and looked up. The summit of the hill was almost flat, in contrast to the steep path he had taken. It was also devoid of vegetation, or for that matter anything else besides rocks, except-

Vash stood a few feet away, arms crossed and looking contemptuously at him. "Took you long enough."

Austria drew his sword, keeping a wary eye on the other man. He couldn't afford to be hasty now, and he didn't have to be, of course, since it was only the two of them, but…something was odd.

"I'm surprised you didn't _ambush_ me again." He snapped, maneuvering himself further away from the edge and keeping his sword trained on Vash. Vash didn't even move, and for some reason this infuriated Austria. "Don't tell me you've actually learned something of honor, you coward!"

Vash sighed. Very deliberately, he unbuckled his sword and let it fall to the ground.

Austria stared.

"Shut up and listen, Roderich." Vash said, softly, but in a steely voice the mountain winds seemed to carry throughout the valley. "I am no longer your friend, and I don't give a damn what you do from here, but I refuse to be your rival. Whatever it is you're trying to prove by beating me, I don't care. I won't challenge you, and I won't play. Leave my lands and people out of your stupid games."

"You think I'm…playing?" Austria hissed, clutching his sword so tightly his knuckles turned white. This wasn't the way it was supposed to turn out. "You-"

"I'm not done."

Vash turned – away from him! – and began to walk along the plateau's edge. "Go home. Stop wasting your time on me. You're ambitious. Take that ambition and go do something useful with it, become the next Roman Empire, or something, but…"

There would be no duel. Vash didn't even care.

No. Austria thought. No.

It was impossible. The shame, the ignominy, the horror of having come all this way to lose so many good men and simply fail because Vash was tired of fighting him - it hit Austria like a brick to the face. He snapped. He saw Vash's sword lying on the ground, forgotten, its owner's skinny form outlined by the unreasonably blue sky, and -

Austria didn't even realize he had screamed. But the sword in his hand flashed like a star as he lunged at Vash's unprotected back, swung – and missed. Vash sidestepped, surprised but not taken in, and Austria found himself staring at a thousand feet of empty air from the wrong side, as his attack took him over the edge of the cliff.

"NO!"

That scream, Austria vaguely thought as he fell, was not his.

A thousand feet below, Austria's sword shattered against the razor-sharp rocks at the foot of the cliff. Austria watched the glittering shards from above, wondering why his body had not yet followed – and then realized that he was dangling just over the plateau edge and that a green-clothed arm had grabbed his wrist.

Dazedly, already knowing what he would find, he looked up into Vash's blue eyes.

"You fucking idiot." Vash said, his voice trembling.

"Let go of me." Austria whispered. "Just let go, damn you, why are you saving me again, this can't happen, I'm your _enemy and GOD DAMN IT LET ME GO_!"

"Your pride," Vash said quietly, "is not worth the lives of you and your people."

Vash dragged him upwards, and Austria, shaking, finally found himself kneeling once again on the barren ground of the plateau. He felt Vash's gaze on him, but whether it was angry or pitying, Austria no longer had the strength to even meet it and find out, let alone get up to fight again. He stared helplessly downwards at the red, dusty ground, and realized that he was crying.

"Why…?"

Vash Zwingli looked down at the bowed head of the one he had once called friend, opened his mouth, and said nothing. Finally, slowly, he turned away, gazing across the barren plateau and towards the distant white peaks. The Swiss victors of Morgarten were waiting for their nation - for him. He was finally ready.

"Goodbye, Roderi…Austria." Switzerland whispered, and walked away, slowly at first but gaining speed. He did not look back.

And Austria, kneeling, felt the cold mountain wind sweeping the tears from his eyes. He wept for the knights who had fallen, for the friendship he had destroyed, and for the boys, Roderich and Vash, whose younger world had finally faded into the shadows of time. He had lost, and now Vash was gone. Their childhood was over.

Where Switzerland walked away over the plateau, a single star-shaped white flower grew.


End file.
